American Express is a global financial services company with over a trillion dollars in card member spend. In order to improve the experience of American Express card members and merchants, the Clinic project uses this spend data to predict future customer transactions at specific merchants. To achieve this, the project documents and designs a framework using various machine learning models that yield accurate transactional predictions for American Express card members and merchants.

GimbalIndoor Mapping with Bluetooth Beacons

Gimbal is the producer of the most widely deployed Bluetooth® Smart beacons in the world. With this technology, Gimbal provides a solution that allows users to receive relevant location-based content, directly to their mobile phones. However, the beacons need to be placed properly in order for them to be effective. We developed an iOS application that uses the phone’s sensors as well as signals from the beacons to create an accurate, interactive map of the installed constellation of beacons.

Intel CorporationLocation-Aware Data Sharing Between Devices

We designed an approach to using location-based data and querying as a means of exploring new ways for users and devices to interact over the Internet. We created an application programming interface (API) that provides convenient tools for developers to integrate location-based communication in a wide range of applications. We developed applications on Android phones that use our API to demonstrate and validate our approach.

LaserficheSimple Real-Time Data Analysis System

Laserfiche provides its customers with a system to create, execute, and report on business processes. The goal of our project was to create a data analysis system that provides each customer with insights they could use to improve their processes. Our team researched and tested various methods for analyzing business process data that would be beneficial to the wide range of Laserfiche customers.

Mitos and MemAxes, a pair of memory analysis and visualization tools developed by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Scalability Team, aid supercomputer users in diagnosing high performance computing (HPC) speed bottlenecks. The LLNL Memory Clinic Team has expanded these tools to be more accessible and powerful for users. Specifically, the team has augmented widely used physics mesh simulation programs to provide detailed Mitos traces and explored machine learning techniques for automatically diagnosing performance problems.

Skies form an important part of any outdoor environment. Turn 10’s current methods have to make tradeoffs between realism, disk space usage, and dynamically choosing the sun and cloud positions. The Turn 10 clinic team aims to solve these problems by procedurally generating realistic skies with the sun position and clouds asked for by the user.

MITRE CorporationDigital Aging

Identification of missing persons becomes more difficult over time as the person ages. To address this challenge, this Clinic project aims to digitally age a face image of a person, building off of existing image processing techniques. The team has created a script interfacing with Adobe Photoshop to simulate the effects of aging on face images, focusing in particular on young subjects to better help identify missing children when their images are presented to automated tools and human observers.

The objective of the clinic project is to develop an alternative to a Voronoi tesselation package called voro++ to be used for mesh-free particle methods calculations. This includes efficiently matching existing functionality for identifying neighbors and calculating particle volumes. On top of this, the project will be able to support group specifications to be able to run calculations on subsets of the particles. The tesselator will interface with the mesh-free particle methods package created by Sandia called MOAB.

SteelcaseClassifying Wood Veneer

Steelcase is the world’s leading manufacturer of high-quality office furniture, some of which is finished with thin slices of wood, called veneer. Since wood is a natural product, this veneer may look significantly different from one log to the next. Our goal is to maximize customer satisfaction by minimizing the perceived variation among the pieces of veneer in furniture. To accomplish this goal, we built a model that sorts veneer into categories based on its color and grain characteristics.

Time, Inc.Image Fingerprinting

Time, Inc. uses millions of images for its various brand websites. It is important for Time, Inc. to maximize reuse of content across brands while preventing perceived duplication and to track usage of images from various sources even after images have been resized, compressed, or otherwise altered. Using content-based image hashing techniques, our team has created a system to identify similar images even after they have gone through editing processes.

Webroot, Inc.Social Reputation on Twitter

The goal for the Webroot 2015-16 Clinic project is to increase the awareness of the risks users face when choosing to participate in various social media networks. The team has developed a social network reputation model, which will be available in the form of an Android application, to inform users of these risks. For this project, Twitter is the primary social network platform used for an analysis of the wide range of possible malicious content such as viruses and spam.

The goal of this project is to explore new ways in which Yelp can help its users glean information from an overwhelming number of reviews for a business. To that end, we have implemented a system that automatically identifies important characteristics of a business and the reviewers’ opinions of these characteristics. With this information, we group these characteristics into high-level categories so that users can quickly find the information they’re looking for.

ZendeskZenscript

The Zendesk clinic team is developing a domain specific language to suit the needs of Zendesk’s largest customers. The language is intended to provide a way to create more succinct and powerful business rules for defining customer support workflow than currently provided in Zendesk. The team’s goal is to make these business rules powerful in order to reduce their overall quantity, improving the maintainability of the customer’s system.

Computer Science/Engineering Clinic

The Aerospace CorporationInnovative Graphics and Input Enhancements for the Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP)

The Aerospace Corporation is a Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC) that provides its Satellite Orbit Analysis Program (SOAP) to a variety of national security and space customers. This clinic project encapsulated a number of 3D rendering techniques in a digital globe framework that can be readily adapted for incorporation into SOAP and/or other OpenGL-based graphics software. The supported effects include real time weather data acquisition and visualization, terrain shadowing, smoke simulation, improved trajectory drawing, and realistic night and day transition.

OakleyProject CharlieMike

Part of Oakley’s design process requires the alignment of pairs of 3D scans of a human face and detection of key points of interest in these scans. Until now, this process was done manually and took approximately an hour for one pair of scans. The Oakley clinic team has developed software that automates the alignment and key point detection processes. This software substantially speeds up these tasks and provides more accurate results than were previously attainable.

Several factors drive liver transplant success, including a patient’s physical activity both pre- and post-operation, and the treatment of subsequent neurological complications that manifest as hand tremors. The Project Spock team is developing both an app for a wearable device and a secure web app that will allow physicians to track physical activity and detect the onset of hand tremors in their patients. These apps will help physicians monitor patients as they prepare for and recover from a liver transplant.

TAG, LLCAutomated Examination of Collectibles

Often, the examination of objects where condition is important do not use technology to its full capacity. Currently, these examinations are done by hand and by eye. Though traditional, this process is more costly, inconsistent, and generally not reproducible. To solve this problem, our team has investigated and prototyped an algorithmically driven processing system wherein specific criteria are examined using computer vision and machine learning resulting in precise, consistent and reproducible conclusions.

Teledyne ControlsFlight Artificial Intelligent Router (FLAIR)

Although many modern commercial aircraft are equipped with multiple off-aircraft communication links, in most cases a particular onboard system is limited to using one pre-assigned link. This inefficient method of aircraft-ground communication has led Teledyne Controls to seek a flexible air-ground communication management system that performs a rule-based smart router function to dynamically select the optimal link to be used for off-aircraft communication. An embedded software program, designed to interface with Teledyne’s current products, was created to implement this important function.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) wishes to better understand the liquid-crystal interface found in white dwarfs. Using LLNL’s massively parallel molecular dynamics simulation code (ddcMD) along with their Blue Gene Q supercomputer, the HMC team will simulate a small region of the interface to shed light on impurity sedimentation and mixing.

Engineering Clinic

Amazon Lab126Automated Collection of Speech in Noise

The (Amazon) Lab126 clinic team was tasked with creating a set of automated test benches to allow greater reproducibility and ease of operation for testing the Alexa Voice Service. This consisted of a software component to automate the activation of various sound sources along with an automated positioning system which could move multiple devices around a room to test a variety of parameters. Furthermore, the team investigated the feasibility of replacing live speech with pre-recorded speech to further automate testing.

AT&T Entertainment GroupAntenna Installation Improvements

The Harvey Mudd AT&T Entertainment Group clinic team has focused on improving antenna installation processes. In order to provide satellite television service, AT&T Entertainment Group must point an antenna, without any line of sight obstructions, at the company’s satellites. The clinic team has created an application designed to determine the feasibility of placing an antenna without obstruction, shown that a smartphone magnetometer cannot track fine angle measurements of an antenna, and created a smartphone application to aid antenna pointing without fine adjustment knobs.

BDRedesigning the Secondary Infusion

The BD/CareFusion Clinic team designed an intravenous infusion device that helps nurses deliver secondary-mode infusions with improved simplicity and reliability. The device achieves this by automating complex, non-intuitive manual operations. It will benefit hospitalized patients who receive intravenous medications.

Each year, hundreds of millions of tons of overburden and waste rock are moved by mining operations nationwide. The Big Mass Battery Clinic team is developing a method to take advantage of this unused mass to store power from renewable energy sources. The proposed device stores renewable energy as potential energy by elevating this mass when excess grid power is available and releases energy by lowering the mass when demand exceeds baseload capacity. The team has demonstrated the feasibility of this device and developed models to inform its implementation.

Metastatic tumors often weaken the bones of cancer patients. If a patient’s femur breaks, they could lose mobility for the rest of their life. The current procedure to reinforce weakened femurs is not always effective. The team has designed, prototyped, and tested a set of devices that will improve the existing procedure. The devices include an improved tumor removal tool, a sophisticated cement applicator, and a redesigned femoral nail.

To improve surgery visibility and mobility, the City of Hope – Retractor 2015-2016 Clinic Team will design and prototype retractor attachments. Listed by priority level, the following attachment components will be developed: lighting, smoke evacuation, camera optics, and organ barrier. The components will be cordless, long lasting, sterilizable, and capable of maintaining a safe temperature to prevent injury to surgeons and patients.

Kinohi InstituteSpatial Heterodyne Raman Spectrometry

The 2015-16 Kinohi Clinic Team is designing, building, and testing a device for capturing the Raman spectra of organic molecules using the Spatial Heterodyne Spectrometer optical design operating with near infrared excitation light. Using no moving parts, this novel approach to Raman spectrometry robustly allows for non-contact, non-destructive material identification. Such a spectrometer has promising applications in fields ranging from chemistry and molecular biology to astrobiology.

Mission Rubber CompanyRubber Molding Process Energy Reduction

Mission Rubber Company is a leading manufacturer of rubber-based products. The Harvey Mudd Mission Rubber Clinic Team is tasked with evaluating and reducing current energy usage in the manufacturing process. The preheat oven and the compression press have been identified as key areas for energy reduction. The team is developing industrial grade prototypes for compression press insulation and consulting with vendors on alternate preheat ovens.

Time synchronization is essential in telecommunication networks and a variety of other fields and applications. There a number of coordination architectures that are widely used to achieve time synchronization in a network. In this project, a model of clock synchronization and a wireless coordination testbed are built to compare the performance of synchronization architectures, algorithms, and hardware. The testbed measures, predicts, and compensates for timing offset and drift between spatially separated systems.

Niagara Bottling, LLC is the largest private label bottled water supplier in the U.S. The company closely monitors its bottles for structural integrity and cost. The Niagara Measurement Clinic Team will design, build, and test a system that can detect changes in bottles being produced on the production line ensuring quality and throughput.

When a manufacturing line stops making one product and starts producing a new product, the machines on the line must be modified or recalibrated in order to produce the new item, in a process called a changeover. Niagara Bottling, LCC has tasked the HMC team with reducing the cost of changeovers performed on one of the machines on their water-bottling lines.

Automotive radar plays a major role in collision avoidance and cruise control. As radar systems become more prevalent, interference becomes a critical issue. The Harvey Mudd Clinic Team investigated the effects of mutual interference on automotive radar systems by building multiple radar systems and introducing mutual interference in controlled scenarios. The results from the hardware model validate the software simulation that provides a modular platform to test a wider range of traffic scenarios.

The Project Magneto Team investigated new options for electromagnetic shielding in consumer electronics. The goal of the project was to identify materials with decreased volume and increased shielding effectiveness. The team designed and conducted a series of experiments to collect data on the electromagnetic power transmitted through a variety of materials. These measurements were used to quantify the shielding effectiveness of both traditional and non-traditional shield materials.

Proteus Digital Health is interested in simple and noninvasive methods for measuring a person’s hydration. The Proteus Clinic Team has been investigating whether it is possible to track a person’s relative hydration using local impedance measurements, where electrodes are less than 10 inches apart on the torso. These measurements could be used in a clinical or home setting to monitor a patient’s hydration levels.

The Regenesis Biomedical Clinic team is modifying the Provant® Therapy System, a medical device that delivers a pulsed electromagnetic field used for palliative treatment of postoperative pain. A new mixed-signal embedded system within the Provant extracts key data related to patient usage and device functionality and wirelessly communicates with a Regenesis database. Regenesis staff will use this system to confirm treatment regimen compliance and to remotely update therapy prescriptions.

SpaceX designs, manufactures, and launches advanced spacecraft. The SpaceX clinic project is to improve the 1968 NASA TM X-53692 standard for characterizing leaks in aerospace hardware. More modern and economical detection methods will be tested on an experimental rig with helium and diverse gas mixtures to verify classifications of various leak geometries.

Whistle Labs, Inc. has developed a collar mounted GPS tracking device for pets that also includes temperature and activity monitoring in order to keep your pet safe. Whistle is particularly interested in preventing animals from being trapped in hot cars. The Whistle Clinic team was tasked with improving the ambient temperature sensing of this device to identify dangerous situations. The team developed a lumped element thermal model to assess device performance and evaluate potential sensor and form factor changes.

The Wildlands Conservancy has a natural, year-round water source at its Oak Glen Preserve that can be used to generate green energy. We have designed a micro-hydroelectric system optimized for the surrounding area that ties into the Southern California Edison grid to offset the property’s power usage. Additionally, we have designed a second smaller system that will be primarily used to educate the Preserve’s visitors about hydroelectric energy.

The Pharmavite clinic team worked on creating and implementing a finite scheduling tool to generate an optimized work order schedule for the manufacturing processes of Pharmavite’s San Fernando facility. The tool will reduce current costs and non-value added time by minimizing bottlenecks, creating visibility to capacity constraints, and optimizing other factors.

Engineering/Physics Clinic

Sandia National LaboratoriesMeasuring the Permittivity of Barium Titanate Nanoparticles in a Matrix-Free Composite

The Sandia National Labs clinic team is working to determine the dielectric constants of barium titanate (BTO) nanoparticles for use in the next generation of electrostatic capacitors. By fabricating and studying composites of BTO nanoparticles suspended and cured in epoxy, the team is investigating the effects of nanoparticle size, volume loading, and surface functionalization on the dielectric constant of the nanoparticles through electrochemical impedance spectroscopy and numerical modeling techniques.

The 2015-2016 Harvey Mudd Global Clinic team is sponsored by RainCatcher, a non-profit organization working to combat the global issue of clean water access. RainCatcher has installed rainwater catchment systems in regions of Kenya, Uganda, and the Navajo Nation. The HMC Clinic team is designing and building a device which will communicate details about each tank to RainCatcher. This device will allow RainCatcher to collect quantitative data on their impact and improve the reliability of their systems.

Mathematics Clinic

EDRAlgorithms for Property Search and Identification

EDR provides a range of products to allow proper-ty stakeholders to manage their assets and liabilities. Many of EDR’s products involve determining if two textual records refer to the same location. EDR would like to improve on the speed and accuracy of these comparisons through automated matching algorithms. Our team has developed a systematic approach to build and test matching algorithms grounded in probability and statistical learning theory.

HRL LaboratoriesAnalysis of Quantum Communication Network Protocols

This project is looking at ways to generate random numbers via shared entanglement on a quantum network. The eventual goal is a distributed randomness beacon using our quantum protocol. We started by looking at networks of 4 and 8 node planar graphs. We analyzed possible malicious actions to investigate the effects an adversarial node can have on the network. We also consider other network topologies as possible candidates for this distributed randomness beacon.

Microsoft CorporationAnomaly Detection for Live Site Incident Detection

Bing is a Microsoft search engine that currently holds approximately 30% of the search engine market. It is critical for Bing to ensure that service remains fast and reliable. This year the Microsoft Math Clinic Team implemented efficient and accurate algorithms to detect anomalies in Bing live site data. The team also created a tool to determine optimal parameters for different algorithms.

Understanding how fish populations change over time helps the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to prevent overfishing and protect fisheries. The Ecosim model describes the change in biomass per species over time for an entire marine ecosystem. The model itself leaves many parameters unspecified which must be inferred from the data. Our goal has been to algorithmically determine sets of parameters which allow the Ecosim model to best predict our data.